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Hargest, Tana

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Digital access to this material is pending artist's approval. Materials may be viewed onsite at the Goldsen Archive, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University.

As a multidisciplinary artist, I use humor, fantasy, technology and the language of consumer culture to investigate the hierarchies of power, race and class. I use the multiple, and at times contradictory identifiers that locate my position in these hierarchies as a starting point for my artistic investigations. Midwestern, middle class, and mixed-race, my identity, and therefor my work, is comprised of continually shifting midway points, simultaneously bridging and obliterating definitions. I am the quintessential American, and as such I have embraced the ultimate in American ingenuity, consumer culture, to illustrate and challenge our reliance on the defining structures of power. Using my body, my experience of the culture as a conduit, I create a feedback loop, forcing my reinterpretations of American culture back out to itself. This act allows me to shift the focus of power off of myself. My work is conceived as a survival tool, a strategy for navigation. My work takes the form of video, interactive media, product design, and designed environments. I use new media as a tool to disarm and invite my audience into dialogue.

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Recent Submissions

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  • Item
    Rockefeller New Media Foundation Proposal
    Hargest, Tana (2006-11-20T19:00:49Z)
    New Negrotopia is an interactive new media project examining the theme of utopian space and the hegemony of race. The concept for the project comes out of current critical dialogues concerning notions of "post-blackness". New Negrotopia will be presented as a post-race, island resort and amusement park, modeled on theme environment-utopias, such as Disney World, in which the participant is invited to become a tourist through their own racial construction and history.